Main menu

International

Tag Archives: speed

Our german customer MATRIUM GmbH has designed and built this automation unit with a huge number of igus components such as drylinE rails, e-chains, chainflex, tribotape and also robolink. It runs today in daily operation. The robolink arm consists of 2 joints (size -20 and -30) and performs a “simple” scara movement.

The complete unit is 5,50 x 3,70 m big, it serves to sort so called JEDEC-Trays for recycling / re-use, ~ 2.500 different trays can be recognized and sorted after the vision learning phase!

we do several lifetime and performance tests with our robolink D joints. Until July, main topics were material and geometry optimisations for the gear and bearing components. Nowadays, we do lifetime tests for different joint types at different loads and speeds. The attached film shows or test unit with currently 9 test places, it will be enlarged in the next weeks up to 12 oor 14 test places.

Some numbers and facts that we found out until now:

# general efficiency factor for our current material combination (iglidur J with aluminum HC) is betweeen 0,28 and 0,35 (over all sizes).

# output torque at tooth-break: 19 Nm (size -20) and 30 Nm (size -30), measured at room temperature for first movement. Today we measure this “breaking torque” at continuous operation. Main influences are the rotation speed, and together with this, the temperature in the gear. We see a huge loss of “breaking torque” in operation. For size -20 we find a safe number at high speed rotation of 2,5 Nm (>100.000 cycles) and 3,5 Nm at low speed rotation.

we see good potential for improvement in the material combination and geometry optimisation.

once again I want to link to Malte Ahlers homepage and 2 of his Videos from his robot project ADAM A1. Now he is really running the 5DOF arm and he is using the 2nd one as teach-in arm. The movement speed and reaction time between left and right arm really impress me!

At MOTEK and FAKUMA we have shown for the first time our new IME software. A common question from many prospective customers was: “How fast can I position with it?” Admittedly, the speeds of the arm shown there were not exactly breathtaking. Now that we have once again optimized the program a little, here is a film with the current maximum attainable speed of movement (with a further increase in speed, repeatability suffers to such an extent that the parts cannot be used properly). We reach a cycle time of approx 7 sec for a pick & place operation (55 sec for this process with 8x pick and place):

Another question was the possibility of using the arm in the clean room, or in areas with a lot of dust and dirt. The system is open, but there is always the possibility to “pack” the arm, here in the film is a very simple option with a protective shell of plastic (costs almost nothing, attached in seconds):